The Market has been holding its breath, fearful of today's Jobs Report. Coming just before Labor Day, it seemed to be even more important than usual. Hopes started to rise Wednesday when the ISM (Institute of Supply Managment) manufacturing index actually rose more than expected.
Still, most economists were expecting that the U.S. economy had lost about 110 thousand non-farm jobs last month, for the third straight month of losses. Instead, we lost "only" 54 thousand jobs. Additionally, we learned that June and July were not as bad as we thought. About 122 thousand jobs were NOT lost during those months! Things appear to be better than we thought?
More good news is that average hourly earnings were up 0.3%, which was more than expected, exceeding last month's 0.2%. This may also explain the higher-than-expected retail sales announced this week.
While the official unemployment rate went up to 9.6% from 9.5%. But, even that was a good thing, because 551 thousand workers re-entered the workforce, which is a good indicator that individuals have again become hopeful of finding a job and for good reason, since the private sector added 67 thousand jobs last month.
A lot of economic heart-burn got better at 8:30AM this morning!
